Autonomous phase-sensitive radio echo sounder for monitoring and imaging antarctic ice shelves

A low-power, autonomous phase-sensitive radio-echo sounder (ApRES) radar system has been developed at University College London, in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey, for monitoring and imaging Antarctic ice shelves. The system is ground-based and uses a direct digital synthesizer to implement a frequency modulated continuous wave radar architecture. The system operates between 200 MHz to 400 MHz with a dc power consumption of 4.8 W. Since January 2014, three ApRES systems have been deployed on the ice shelf of Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica. One system is configured in monostatic point ranging mode, while two systems are configured in an orthogonal 8×8 multiple input multiple output (MIMO) arrangement that enables two-dimensional through ice imaging.